Pages

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Show, Don't Tell?

Image courtesy of K Whiteford at PublicDomainPictures.net, modified by me.

Depending on where you are in your journey as a writer,
you may or may not have heard the expression, “Show, don’t tell.”It’s one of those maxims that gets repeated a
lot in the writing community.If you
were to perform a web search using that phrase, you would get results of
countless articles, blog posts, possibly even advertisements for books.It has another variant: “Don’t tell me; show
me.”It’s the holy grail of writing
advice, and it tends to be regurgitated in every writing blog, magazine, or
book out there.

You know, so I thought I’d climb aboard the “show, don’t
tell” regurgitation bandwagon. Admittedly,
it’s a concept that bears repeating, and while it sounds simple, it can be a
bit flummoxing at times. Because,
honestly, just what exactly does it mean? After all, we ‘tell’ stories, don’t
we?How can we ‘show’ something when we
are using words, which by definition, means we are ‘telling’ it?

In general, the idea is that if you write something like,
“Jack and Jill flirted with each other for several minutes before they finally
decided to part ways,” that would be considered ‘telling.’If you were to describe the flirting – say,
write about their flirtatious behavior, that would be considered ‘showing.’ To ‘show’ this kind of thing requires an
understanding of what flirting looks like, or, if the narration style is from
one of the character’s point of view, what it feels like. (If you’re trying to write
something like this but have never flirted, don’t despair – you can get a
general idea from movies and/or observing other people.) You would write
dialogue for Jack and Jill’s witty banter, describe their body language and
other physical cues that go along with flirting, and so on.

And believe it or not, showing v. telling is a concept
that applies to film and theatre as well.That might sound surprising, since, you know, theatrics are ‘showing’ by
definition, but remember that writing is ‘telling’ by definition.“Show, don’t tell” applies across all
storytelling media. A good example of
how this applies in film is from Star
Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Star Wars saga, Obi-wan Kenobi is a Jedi
Knight who is training Anakin Skywalker in the ways of the Jedi.Their relationship starts as more of a
father-son thing, but by this point in the story they are basically blood
brothers. These guys are tight. Besties. Trust each other with their lives. It’s a major bromance. You get the idea.

In one particular scene, Obi-wan watches some security hologram
footage that shows how Anakin has sold out to the Dark Side (trademark!) of the
Force. (Even those who don’t know Star
Wars probably know that Anakin turns into Darth Vader, but Obi-wan hasn’t
seen the movies yet.) The footage even shows Anakin slaughtering the Younglings
– basically, the Jedi version of Cub Scouts.After Obi-wan sees a few seconds, he shuts it off and says, “I can’t
watch anymore.”His eyes are wide and he
says, “I don’t believe it.”

This is, in my opinion, a case of telling rather than showing.Sure, we can figure out from what Obi-wan tells us that he can’t believe it, and that he’s shaken by the
whole thing, but beyond a little eye-widening, we don’t really see it. In my opinion, a better way of communicating
this would be for us to see a more physical response from Obi-wan.Perhaps he would close his eyes and turn
away; he would shut off the hologram with a visibly shaky hand. He might not
even say “I can’t watch anymore.” He wouldn’t need to say it for us to
understand that’s what he’s thinking. Instead of saying “I don’t believe it” in his
normal acting delivery voice, he could stammer, his voice could crack, he could
bury his face in his hands, or anything like that.Granted, in the movie, he does shake his head
a little bit, but I feel as if this is woefully insufficient.One might argue that he’s too shocked to
react, but we would see physical cues from this.If you’re too shocked to react, you don’t
say, “I don’t believe this.” You simply don’t
react. In this case, Obi-wan would just stand there, doing nothing – he might
have is mouth open or we might see him shaking a little bit.

Obi-wan’s entire
world has just undergone a massive paradigm shift.Jedi or not, that’s core-shattering.I’m not suggesting that he should have a total
meltdown; being able to rein in the shock after a few minutes would be
consistent with his character, but as viewers, we would know how much this is
eating at his soul.Then, when he
finally does have a breakdown and screams at Anakin at the end of the movie,
the audience knows just how much Obi-wan is hurting – we know how long he’s
been holding it in.

For the record, I love
Ewan McGregor as Obi-wan Kenobi.I’m
not dissing him here.I might be dissing
the writer and/or director, but not McGregor.Just so we’re clear.

So, “show, don’t tell” seems like a simple enough
concept, but it’s easy to get tripped up on it.Does this mean telling is always bad?Is showing always good? Dealing
in absolutes is never a good way to look at things. You know, except for the absolute that I just
said.

Both showing and telling are useful tools.They are different tools, but both are
useful.They simply have different
functions.Would you use a hammer to put
in a screw? Well, I suppose you could, but you would seriously botch your
project.What about using a wrench to
put in a nail? Once again, you could, but it’s going to be a really awkward
process, wherein you might injure yourself, damage the project, and/or look
like a total fool while doing it. In the example of “Jack and Jill flirted with
each other for several minutes” and Obi-wan’s simple “I can’t watch anymore,”
we see ‘telling’ being used clumsily.It’s
not the right tool for the job.

‘Showing’ is the preferable method most of the time.Can you imagine how flat it would be if J.K.
Rowling simply told us that Professor
Umbridge in Harry Potter was an
unpleasant person and that everyone disliked her? Instead, Rowling shows us that Umbridge is, in fact, despicable.
She demonstrates this by showing everything: Umbridge’s obnoxious little “hem hem,” her faked sweetness, the quill
that writes lines in the back of Harry’s hand, and so on. By the end of book 5,
you pretty much hate Umbridge more
than you hate Voldemort. This is not because Rowling said that Umbridge was a
nasty person.It’s because Rowling
showed us, in gruesome detail, just how horrific and hateful Umbridge was.

This is not to say that ‘telling’ is useless and should
NEVER EVER BE USED.It’s more like that
one tool in your toolbox that you only use for a very specific purpose.So, while “everybody knows” that you should use
‘showing,’ there are times that telling is useful.

For example, if you are writing a story that spans a
large period of time, if you were to ‘show’ every single thing, your story
would be longer than Robert Jordan’s Wheel
of Time saga. (For those who don’t know, Wheel of Time is fourteen volumes long.) Having just used Rowling
as an example of how effective and good showing is, I would also like to point
out that she uses ‘telling’ quite well.‘Telling’
is best used for…take a wild guess…time skips.If you skip from January to March, you will need some ‘telling’ to fill
in a few minor details.Rowling
obviously needs to use time skips because she covers an entire school year, and
she can’t fill in every single excruciating detail.

Now, even when you are ‘telling,’ you need to do it in
such a way that doesn’t feel quite so
much like telling.Instead of saying, “Three
weeks passed.Jack and Jill periodically
talked to each other throughout this time,” you might try something more along
the lines of, “Over the course of the next three weeks, Jack and Jill continued
to talk to each other occasionally.”

However, you need to be cautious in your use of ‘telling.’If you’re glossing over something, consider
whether you ought to be showing it
instead.If Jack and Jill discuss
something during this time that is important to the plot, then you definitely
need to be ‘showing.’

While the maxim “show, don’t tell” is a useful – arguably
crucial – thing for writers to remember, do bear in mind that telling isn’t
always bad.Deciding when and where to use
it is the trickier thing. This is going to be a bit of a judgment call on your
part, and if you’re not sure about it, ask a trusted friend for advice on the
matter.

Or, if you fall back on the time-tested “show, don’t tell”
advice, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

Have you heard the
expression “show, don’t tell”? What do you think about the concept? What are
some ways you can incorporate it into your own writing? Share any questions or
thoughts in the comments.

Was this blog post
useful? Take a minute to share it on your favorite social network.